The Racial Wealth Gap and the March on Washington

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That’s being commemorated by a gathering on the Mall here in DC, and by some excellent writing. Among what I’m sure are many other excellent pieces, here are two that are worth reading and notable to us for their focus on the racial wealth gap:

“Race and Poverty, Fifty Years After the March” by Vauhini Vara in The New Yorker–

“The marchers of 1963 sought policies that would help poor people generate wealth; back then, the government did that by helping people find good work and make decent wages, along with introducing anti-poverty programs that helped people pay for food and other essentials. Today, now that the wealth gap mostly has to do with investments—especially in housing—it would seem that the best policy solution would be to help people buy homes that they can afford and acquire other wealth-generating assets.

Instead, the government’s policies for poor people have emphasized consumption without also focussing on savings and investments, as the Urban Institute, a research organization, pointed out in an April report. For instance, the government helps people pay for food with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Families can even lose certain benefits if they save too much.

The United States does have policies aimed at building wealth—but those policies happen to disproportionately help people who are already pretty rich.”

“Fifty years after March on Washington, economic gap between blacks, whites persists” by Michael Fletcher in The Washington Post–

“In the meantime, other ­researchers say policymakers should look hard at reshaping policies that exacerbate racial inequality. Tom Shapiro, a Brandeis University professor whose research focuses on racial inequality, noted that a long-term study of black and white families found that white households had median wealth of $265,000, compared with $28,500 for black families, nearly a 10-to-1 gap.

That disparity, he said, has grown in recent years and is aided by a slew of popular policies — such as the mortgage interest deduction and tax deferrals on retirement savings — that favor the well-off, who typically have bigger mortgages and can put more money aside for retirement. Taken together, the tax breaks amount to more than $400 billion a year, Shapiro said. “This amounts to a public subsidy for homeownership and retirement,” Shapiro said. “The distribution of these rewards are highly skewed.”

While the numbers are obviously troubling, it’s great to see these issues being highlighted, and credit being given to people doing excellent work in this area, like the Urban Institute and Tom Shapiro at Brandeis. You should read both pieces, they’re very well done.

Oh, and as a final side note, if you find yourself wondering if we’ve achieved a post-racial society just click into the comments section on the Post’s article, or any article in any newspaper in America that writes a story on today’s commemoration and you’ll have your answer pretty quickly.